“They are adored, scrutinized, noted, insulted, solicited, hunted down. Oil kings of the time, in shorts on the green carpet, in a little overplayed elegance in the evenings, hundreds of millions of kids around the world have dreamed of such a destiny: to become multimillionaires by scoring goals. It’s Pascale Clark who speaks and, for Pseudo Radio, she tells what life is like for professional football players. And it’s beyond amazing. Both because the journalist knows so well how to conduct interviews and find the right tone and because she has this rather irresistible voice, let’s say it. When she says, “My name is Pascale Clark and you’re listening to ‘Pascale Pro'”, it’s literally irresistible. Even if, fair play, she admits from the outset that it was not she who found the title.
Not her, but then who? Ramdane Touhami, a jack-of-all-trades entrepreneur who has just set up Pseudo Radio, an independent podcast studio whose backbone is, as the press release proclaims, “requirement, exuberance and relevance”. With “star interviewers”, such as François Simon (former food columnist for Le Monde), who will offer “Restôrateur”.
But back to Pascale Clark. The one who easily admits that she no longer wants to do political interviews or promote artists has therefore chosen football – a world that is very difficult to penetrate. But in the story, she says, there is an intermediary, Farid Kounda (author, in particular, of the documentary Au coeur des Bleus, in 2016), who opened his address book to her. What interests him? Telling their daily life: “There is a huge gap between their notoriety and what they live, which often rhymes with loneliness and boredom. »
No jargon
So, with her digital Nagra slung over her shoulder and her bag full of questions, Pascale Clark set off to question those who we see a lot but who are rarely heard at length, and other than at the end of a match. No trick questions, but no jargon. It must be said, in this sense, that the first episode, around Adil Rami, is quite exemplary. The interview begins at his place, in this large apartment in the old town of Troyes. It’s early afternoon and the final moments of the 37-year-old’s professional career. And remembering the games as a child where anything went, “even a potato, sometimes.” His nicknames? ” Without brain ” ; and “Bouge-bouge”, for his mother. A mother who raises her four children alone, to whom he owes everything.
Adil Rami will first be a mechanic, then a garbage collector, before becoming a defender. The next day, Pascale Clark finds him at the time of the weighing, since this is how each day begins, by this body scrutinized with a magnifying glass. With his 91.7 kilos for 1.90 m, Adil Rami talks about money without taboos, says that he has put his family to safety by buying houses, that he owns “a lot of apartments and nursing homes”. Talks about women, whom he “mistrusts”. Does not regret his love affair with Pamela Anderson and denies having been violent towards her.
We then say to ourselves that it is rare to hear football players like this. That Dame Clark has again pulled off a radio sleight of hand like no other. She would like to interview coaches, referees “and players, of course”. “I think every story will be different. I hope there won’t be a way to do it, just the basics: go see them there and that they offer us some of them. »
